


She's Still Got Infinity Ahead of Her

by reagancrew



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Birthday, F/F, Fluff, Swan-Mills Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3226460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reagancrew/pseuds/reagancrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Thank you,” she murmurs, her lips full and her eyes maybe a little bit watery. She turns to go before Emma can respond, but, with her back to Emma, says into the darkness, “I don’t make wishes.” This is an offering, and Emma places the words down inside her ribcage, to be saved, always. “Maybe…maybe don’t forget. Today,” she clarifies. “Maybe don’t forget today, and next year, you’re invited. For dinner.” </i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Title from Gregory Alan Isakov's "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lKFQxdLXgs">The Universe</a>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	She's Still Got Infinity Ahead of Her

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just going to keep writing these one-shots where they're super in love and haven't fully figured it out yet. Sorry that I am definitely not sorry about it. Also, Swan-Mills family fluff.

She waits until Henry’s gone up to bed, until he’s clomped up the stairs, until they’ve heard the water in the shower shut off, and his bedroom door click closed. She lets Regina drag her upstairs to say their final good nights, claps him on the back and stands on tiptoe to kiss him unabashedly on the cheek. She turns away when Henry pulls Regina into a tight hug to give them some semblance of privacy, tries not to hear his “Love you, Momma” that comes out quiet and easy, knowing it’s not an every night thing: this whispered exhalation of love, knowing it is simultaneously powerful and secret and shared. She closes her eyes when Regina says it back, when she swallows thickly as she passes Emma and heads out into the hallway. 

Emma waits until she’s sure the kid’s flipped off the light on his bedside table and stuck in his headphones, and is on his way to sleeping. She waits patiently in the study until Regina has come back downstairs, having shed her skirt and heels, silk blouse and tights for a pair of Henry’s old cross country sweats and the flannel button up Emma got her (as a joke) two Christmases ago. She waits until Regina’s settled herself comfortably on the sofa, legs curled up beneath her, fresh glass of red wine in hand. 

She asks about Regina’s day at the office, as if they’re a married couple getting an hour of relaxation together before bed, but this is the routine they’ve fallen into. The kid’s asleep, the dinner dishes are done, the house is quiet and peaceful. She nods in all of the right places, ‘mhmm’s and ‘uhuh’s at the appropriate times. But she leaves her own glass of cider untouched on the coffee table, sits rigidly with her feet firmly planted on the floor, fingers the tiny object in her left jacket pocket. 

“Miss Swan,” Regina’s staring at her thoughtfully, her dark hair reflecting the firelight, her eyes clear. 

“What?” she asks, taking her hand out of her pocket. “Sorry; I was listening.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Regina smiles gently at her. “I know you’ve been pulling double shifts since David hurt his ankle.”

“I’m fine,” Emma waves away the concern, reaching forward for the glass on the coaster and taking a smooth sip. “Really. You were talking about those new parking spaces Doc wants by the pharmacy. It’s riveting stuff,” she smirks slowly at Regina.

“Well, I’ve told him he can’t have any of the city’s parking spaces. They don’t need ten specially designated spaces simply for the store,” Regina taps one finger against her wine glass. 

“Ridiculous,” Emma murmurs. 

“Quite.” Regina smiles over at the fire, drains the rest of her wine.

“Another?” Emma asks, standing quickly and reaching out a hand. 

“I’m alright,” Regina murmurs, but she hands over the empty glass, and Emma pivots on her heel, and heads towards the kitchen. 

“Thanks for dinner!” Emma calls over her shoulder as she heads through the swinging door. She deposits the glass in the sink, rests both palms against the countertop and takes a deep breath.

“You’re welcome,” Regina’s socked feet are silent, and Emma jumps, spinning to face her. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t realize you were following me.” Their fingertips brush one another as Emma accepts the tumbler of cider from Regina and dumps it down the drain. “Thanks for dinner,” she repeats, softer this time. “Sorry I just kind of… showed up,” but she turns back to the sink to wash the glasses before Regina can respond.

Regina’s moved to sit at the island, and she’s watching Emma closely. “You’re always welcome here for dinner,” she assures. 

Emma knows this is not a lie, but she hunches her shoulders anyway. She tries not to show up unannounced, waits for Regina or Henry to invite her over always. This is Regina’s space, her home, and Emma knows she was enough of an idiot about taking up Regina’s space for the first two years to ever purposefully interject herself there again. But tonight, coming off three doubles in a row, her head aching and her stomach rumbling, her own apartment dark and empty, and the tiny object burning a hole in her pocket…She didn’t even really think about where she was going until she turned onto Mifflin. 

“Well,” she mutters. “Sorry anyway.”

“Emma,” Regina’s voice is low with the late-hour and the wine. “It’s alright.”  
“I have something for you,” Emma blurts out as she puts the tumbler, freshly washed, face down on the drying rack. 

“Oh?”

“Snow wanted to give you some kind of Bundt cake tin or something, but I managed to talk her out of that. And then they wanted to have you over for dinner. Well, you and the kid obviously. But she probably would have done the whole balloons and streamers and ice cream cake thing, and Henry said – “ She interrupts herself, wiping her hands on her jeans to dry them and staring out the back window as though the yard is not completely blanketed in winter snow and nighttime darkness. “I mean, he just said you probably wouldn’t be in to all of that shit. So, I exnayed dinner, but he texted this morning to say you guys were just having dinner here, so I didn’t even really think about it when I was driving over here.”

“Oh,” Regina repeats, and Emma can see her face reflected in the windowpane. Her dark eyes large, and her face still and smooth. But Emma can recognize the internal fight or flight conflict anywhere, and she’s pretty sure if Regina was just a little bit less polite, she’d be up and out of the chair and yelling for Emma to let herself out while on her way upstairs. 

“He told me last week,” Emma shrugs, hands back in her jacket pocket; she hadn’t let Regina take it at the door when she’d showed up.

“I see.”

“I wasn’t going to come over; he said you don’t like to make a big deal out of it or anything.”

“No.”

Emma wonders how a voice can crack on such a tiny word. “So, sorry, but I do have something for you.” She turns, finally, glancing up for a brief look at Regina, who is staring off to the left of her, avoiding eye contact. She pulls her hand out of her pocket, takes two steps forward, and places it silently down on the counter next to Regina, but she leaves her palm pressed flat down on top of it for several seconds, wills her hand to stop shaking. “It’s not wrapped. And it’s not like a big thing or anything.” The shaking seems to have traveled to her voice now, too. 

She feels a little bit lightheaded and on a scale of one to one hundred, her awkwardness is off the charts right now. She wasn’t going to do this: make a big scene; put her foot in her mouth. But that seems to be her trademark when it comes to Regina Mills and stupid fucking sentimentality. 

“I don’t normally – I mean – I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything, and if you want it to just be like a just because present or whatever, that’s cool, too. It doesn’t have to be, specifically, _for_ your –“ she gulps, because Regina’s face has twitched, her mouth curving downwards for half a second before she resumes her steady stare. “For your birthday,” she finishes finally, her voice no more than a whisper. 

Regina finally turns her head, still avoiding Emma’s gaze, and looks down to where Emma’s hand is still splayed flat on the counter. She reaches out, touches three fingers to the back of Emma’s hand, and Emma tries to keep her face just as smooth as Regina’s. Regina taps her fingers once, twice, three times, and nods. Emma turns her hand over, grabs Regina’s fingers in her own, slightly sweaty grip, and waits until Regina’s dark eyes come slowly up to meet hers. 

“Thank you for dinner,” Emma says carefully, sincerely. She feels like she should explain that when Henry told her last weekend what today was, she’d promised – crossed her heart and sworn to die – that she wouldn’t get Regina a present, that she wouldn’t even mention it. She’d promised to make sure the Charmings stayed well enough away. She’d promised to promptly forget what today even was. But she wants to tell Regina about how, after Henry left for school, she’d pulled the small box out from under her bed, dusted off the lid, sifted through a few photographs and her baby blanket, the swan pendant Neal had stolen for her, and glasses she wore as a teenager. She wants to tell Regina that she isn’t sentimental, but that she’d found the item, five-pointed and partly melted, and she’d pulled it out of the box and slipped into her pocket, that she’s been carrying it around all week. She wants to remind Regina that their kid is basically a genius, and she’d promised him not to do exactly what she’s doing. But she also wants to remind Regina that they have twice weekly family dinners, and Regina’s teaching her how to cook, and Emma cleans out the gutters on the mansion in the fall, and Regina and Henry helped her paint her apartment last spring, and when she went to get her license renewed the month before, she’d accidentally written out 108 Mifflin St. before realizing her mistake. Instead she smiles, one last careful smile, and pulls her hand away.

She waits, holding her breath, while Regina looks down at the candle, sitting so innocuously on the countertop. The wick is charred and there’s a single drop of blue wax marring the otherwise flat surface of the star where it’d melted when she’d blown it out all those years ago. 

“Henry told you it was my birthday,” Regina murmurs.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t celebrate my birthday.”

“Right,” Emma rocks back on her heels.

Regina traces the points of the star with a single finger. “Henry went and … found you on your birthday.”

“Mhmm,” Emma rubs one foot on top of the other, and feels her chest constrict at the memory of ‘another banner year,’ Henry on her doorstep, of Regina’s face on the loop of angry and hurt and angry and worried and angry and exhausted for the first two years they’d known each other. 

“You said,” Regina picks up the candle, studies it, “You said you made a wish.”

Emma looks up sharply. Regina wasn’t supposed to work this out, she wasn’t supposed to _remember._

“You made a wish never to be alone again.” It’s not a question, and now Emma is the one facing that fight or flight reflex.

“And I haven’t been. Thanks to you. Thanks to Henry.” _Stay, stay, stay._

Regina is quiet for a few minutes, quiet enough that Emma can practically feel the hum of the refrigerator echoing in her bones, can almost convince herself that she can hear the snowflakes whirling outside. They’re calling for at least an inch tonight. Finally, she licks her lips, twirling the candle in her fingers, “It’s late.”

Emma glances automatically at the clock where 11:32 is blinking aggressively back at her. If she goes home now, she won’t be able to sleep. Even if her body is crying out for her bed. 

“And it’s snowing.”

“Are you sure you aren’t a mind reader,” Emma asks, attempting humor. 

“You should stay the night,” Regina looks up at her, finally, her voice steady and decided. “The guest room is ready, of course.” She does not say ‘your room,’ even though Emma’s got three changes of clothes in the bottom drawer of the dresser, and her extra tooth brush sits in the guest bathroom, and she knows that Regina slipped in there before she came back downstairs earlier to turn the covers down just in case. 

“Alright,” Emma agrees. She sleeps without nightmares in exactly one place: when her son is one door to the left and Regina is safe and sound at the end of the hall. 

Regina turns, expecting Emma to follow, and leads the way out of the kitchen, waiting patiently at the foot of the stairs while Emma hits the lights in the study, flips the deadbolt on the front door, slips out of her leather jacket and hangs it up on the hook in the closet. Emma stares down at Regina’s socked feet, taking the stairs lightly, and trails a finger along the trim in the hallway until they reach the guest room. She pauses when Regina does.

“I’m glad you came over tonight,” Regina whispers. They’ve left the lights off, and Regina’s illuminated from below by the nightlight plugged into the hall socket. 

Emma reaches out to touch Regina’s elbow gently.

Regina brings the candle up to her lips, gives it a gentle kiss, and then places it in Emma’s waiting palm. “Thank you,” she murmurs, her lips full and her eyes maybe a little bit watery. She turns to go before Emma can respond, but, with her back to Emma, says into the darkness, “I don’t make wishes.” This is an offering, and Emma places the words down inside her ribcage, to be saved, always.  
“Maybe…maybe don’t forget. Today,” she clarifies. “Maybe don’t forget today, and next year, you’re invited. For dinner.” 

Emma smiles, and looks down at the tiny candle in her hand. There’s the whisper of Regina’s clothing, and then the scent of cinnamon and Emma feels Regina’s mouth dry and light on her cheek, all of her lipstick wiped away. “Consider this a standing invitation.” She’s gone before Emma has a chance to answer, slipping into her own room and closing the door softly behind her.

“Happy birthday,” Emma whispers down the hall, and she brings the candle gently up to her lips before slipping it into the back pocket of her jeans, and closing the door of the guest room.


End file.
